Chair: Some Assembly Required

Sticking with the Christmas theme for just a little bit here.

My Mum got me a chair for Christmas. Doesn't it look amazing? It is a leather pedestal swivel recliner with matching ottoman. This is a great gift because it gives me another place to sit in my living room and it is a really cool place to sit at that! A couple of weeks ago I came home after being out somewhere, (for the life of me I have no idea where, but it is not important to the story,) and had a sudden urge to sit in my new chair. At that point it still looked like it does in this first picture. But, even though it was late, I was hyper and wanted, maybe even needed to sit in my new chair.

My first thought was, "How did they get the whole chair and ottoman into this box?" This was a logistical nightmare as that curvey metal piece you see wrapped in foam goes down and under the rest of the pieces at the bottom of the box. I was going to have to pull it all out at once. Did I mention it was late and my roommate was already in his room? I was pretty sure that he wasn't asleep yet so I was moving on.

My next thought as I started to pull the pre-assembled chair from the box was, "I have yet to see an instruction booklet." Now I consider myself pretty handy, but I am no fool when it comes to putting together foreign made furniture. You do it how they tell you to do it.

Luckily I found this stuck to the bottom of the foot rest. Notice that this is not really a book per se, but a single page with slightly ambiguous diagrams outlining how to piece together this wonderful chair with numbers, arrows, but not a single word. Worry point number one.

I was mildly amused by the job that was done when packaging this kit. See how they obviously partially assembled the more complicated parts for me, but only after they had pre-wrapped the seat base in plastic? Interesting.

So here was the chair after completely removing any and all packaging and / or protective coatings. I was now faced with turning this jumble of leather and metal into a functioning recliner, (swivel pedestal recliner,) using only:

That's right! Two Allen keys. You'd think Mum went to an old school Ikea to pick this one up. Anyway, these two unassuming tools were going to be used in conjunction with:



This small collection of hardware. It was at this point that I came to my Worry Point number two.





If we take a closer look at my instruction page, you can see the parts breakdown will at some point be calling for six washers, of varying sizes. Do me a favour and go back to the picture of the small collection of hardware. See any washers in there? Neither did I. Now I had a decision to make. Continue on, hoping the washers were a redundant part of this kit, or set the project aside and maybe get back to it next quarter.

I mentioned earlier that I was hyper, so I didn't want to wait. I boldly proceeded and eventually had a chair and matching ottoman that was identical to the photo on the side of the original packaging.

And this is me enjoying the comforts of said chair and matching ottoman. Incidentally, I had two of those short bolt and nut things still on the coffee table when I got finished.

Worry Point number three.

All for now,
Kef...